


Loneliness of the Deep

by Eurazba



Category: Tales of Arcadia (Cartoons)
Genre: 3Below Season 2, Abandonment Issues, Angst, Gen, Name Calling, The Deep, Worst fears, fears, it's kinda tame tbh, takes place during race to trollmarket
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:48:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27021520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eurazba/pseuds/Eurazba
Summary: Looking for Gaylen's core, Toby has to face his newfound fears in The Deep.Written for Inktoby 2020
Relationships: Aaarrrgghh & Toby Domzalski
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	Loneliness of the Deep

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for my little event [Inktoby,](https://eurazba.tumblr.com/post/628267337083224064/inktoby-2020-prompts-thanks-to-those-with) today's prompt was "Deep"  
> This is technically a piece from my 3below Season 2 rewrite "Stuck in Arcadia", which I'll write out in it's full completion... eventually.

The Deep.

This was The Deep, he knew about this place, Jim told him about it. Jim told Blinky, AAARRRGGHH, Claire and Toby all about what he saw down here, about the being he had to fight. He speculated that it worked similar to how the pixies did, manifesting your worst fears before you, Toby wondered if he’d see the same thing he saw with the pixies, or something worse.

It was horribly dark down here, both the light of his helmet and the glow of his hammer couldn’t manage to penetrate more than a few feet before him if he was lucky, he could barely make out of the rock wall next to him that led back up to the hero’s forge. The darkness made everything around him colder, darker, and far lonelier than it already was, even in being separated from everyone else. It also made him all the more tense with the silence and the lack of anything jumping out at him like he expected. With the pixies, the illusion was quick and sudden, and while the sudden change of everything around him should have been a big tipper that the situation he saw wasn’t real, the pixies had a way of easily manipulating one’s perception and accept the realities suddenly presented before them, no matter how radical.

This wasn’t that. It was just dark.

And cold.

And horrifyingly _lonely._

“AAARRRGGHH?” He asked cautiously, too tense to raise his voice louder than murmur.

He jumped at the sound of his phone ringing, breaking him out of his thoughts. It was a smart move on Aja and Krel’s part, if they couldn’t find each other and were too cautious to move forward, try to call. He reached around and fumbled for the pocket in his armor, pulling the phone out once he found it; the blue screen nearly blinded him as he saw that Claire was actually the one calling. She hadn't sent him a warning text before to say that she was calling, it must have been an emergency.

"Claire! What's going on, are you okay?!" He asked the moment he answered the call, keeping his eyes peeled should something choose to come out at him in his moment of distraction.

"Oh yeaaah, it's greaat!" She sang, sounding far too relaxed for having called him out of the blue.

"I... okay? Well, then why did you call me without a warning?" He checked behind him, still too dark to see anything.

"O-ho yeah, so Jim wanted me to call you-"

"Is _he_ okay?"

" _Yeah_ ," She said, almost as if she was annoyed at him for interrupting her, but she must have understood why he'd be worried, right? "Anyways! He just wanted me to call you to tell you to... Stop calling him."

"W-what?" Toby asked, unable to stop the immediate feeling of panic that jolted through him at hearing that.

"Yeah, so, you know how you call him, like, almost _every_ day?" She said, almost like she was laughing, "Just stop."

"I-Wh-"

"I mean honestly, just how desperate are you?" Every word made Toby's blood run cold, why was this happening now? Why were they finally tired of him _now_? "Why do you think Jim had you stay in Arcadia? It's because he doesn't think you're capable enough, much less serious enough, to handle as dangerous a situation as crossing the country with Trollmarket. And honestly, this one should have been obvious, _he doesn't want to talk to you anymore."_

"B-but Jim, said-"

"Oh _come_ _on_ ," She sneered, Toby could barely hold back the way his hands shook, the light of his hammer wobbling with it, and the tears that welled up in his eyes at Claire’s blunt, harsh words, "That was just him being _polite_ , Jim's got some acting under his belt, he can _lie_ when he's too polite to tell you something to your face."

"N-no, ple-"

"So, just do us all a favor and stop making Jim take precious time out of his day just to talk to you,” Claire sounded so light, so careless, so much like she was on the stage, what was going on? “Oh! And can you send AAARRRGGHH back? It’s really selfish of you to just have him all to yourself when _we_ obviously need him more, I mean think about Blinky."

"T-that was AAARRRGGHH's choice," Toby tried to defend, barely able to breath at what he was hearing.

"Oh come on, that was obviously because he just didn't see you as capable enough to take care of yourself.”

It hurt, it all hurt so much because deep down he knew it was true. What was he without AAARRRGGHH, and Jim, and everyone around him? Just some human tagging along on adventures that he didn’t really belong in. He didn’t have some chosen destiny like Jim, he didn’t have magic like Claire, he didn’t even have some royal other worldly life following him like Aja and Krel did. The only reason he was down here was because he just happened to know about this place, because he happened to be at the right place at the right time, but AAARRRGGHH could have just as easily led them here. What was he? A useless nobody that was stuck in the darkness. But still he pleaded.

“Claire, _please-_ ”

“ _What?_ ” She snapped, she sounded so harsh, like when they first argued, like when he first tried to push her out, now she was pushing him out. It was much easier now, now that they were so far apart, “You don’t _really_ need AAARRRGGHH, you’re not a Trollhunter,” He nearly dropped his hammer at her words, the faint light around him swirled as his eyes welled up with more tears that threatened to spill. There was no one else here, he could cry, no one would see him, a tear slipped past when he blinked, “We need him more, you're being selfish, _Tubby."_

_Oh._

Like a spell, he was broken out of his trance where everything was falling apart around him, all because of that one word.

_Tubby._

Claire would _never_ call him that, even when she was angry at him, she never took such a low blow in name calling.

This wasn't real.

This was Toby’s fear manifesting itself from the Deep. He looked up at the endless darkness, there was no being to fight in his fear, not physically at least, he almost laughed at himself. Reaching around, he felt in the pocket of his armor for his real phone, still sitting there, not the illusion he was holding in his hand and talking to this fake Claire with. He hastily wiped at his eyes, panic slowly dissolving with the realization. This is why there was no warning text, this is why Claire was so bluntly rude to him, this was his fear that the Deep sought to break him with, and to be frank it probably would have worked too if he kept believing it.

"Hey Claire?" He said softly to the fake phone.

"What?" She asked back, far too harsh for the Claire he really knew.

"Just, tell Jim, thank you, for always calling and talking with me, I love you guys."

He could barely make out her saying something snippy back before arbitrarily hanging up the fake phone and throwing it against the ground, it shattered and dissolved in the darkness along with everything else. Fishing out his real phone, Toby took a deep breath to calm down and get his bearings straight as he fiddled with the password and opened up his most recent messages. The group text was the same as it had been that day, the text from Toby just earlier asking if it was okay to call, and a picture Claire sent of some fog covered mountains they saw that morning with tiny face of Jim poking up in the corner, grinning at his photo bomb. This was real, this was the Jim and Claire that Toby knew, the ones that happily talked to him every day, and sent wishes to be experiencing the new things each of them was encountering together instead of apart.

Toby turned off his phone, shoving it back in its pocket and rubbing at his eyes once more. The next step was forward, to find someone, to not let the Deep sink it’s way into his mind.

“Wingman?”

Toby spun around at the worried voice of AAARRRGGHH, his grey stone just barely catching Toby’s lights. He took a cautious step forward and Toby saw the panicked look on his face.

Instead of relief, Toby froze, unsure if the AAARRRGGHH that worriedly looked at him was real, or another illusion of the Deep.

“Wingman?” Toby asked cautiously, ready for this AAARRRGGHH to possibly charge and attack if he wasn’t real.

But he stayed still, unwilling to move from his place and looking over Toby with the same kind of caution that Toby felt. This AAARRRGGHH must have been real, he must have seen something in the Deep earlier like Toby.

“I’m real,” Toby said, offering a hand as a show of faith, certain, but still hoping that this AAARRRGGHH was real.

“Really?” AAARRRGGHH asked, looking down at the offered hand and tilting his head at Toby.

“Yeah,” Toby nodded.

AAARRRGGHH ran up to him and scooped him in a hug, a bubble of relieved laughter came from Toby as he hugged AAARRRGGHH back.

 _I’m okay, we’re safe_ , Toby thought as the familiar scent of moss filled his nostrils.

The had only a moment of reprieve before the unmistakable sound of Krel screaming in horror ripped through the air; both broke from their hug and turned to rush towards the sound in worry. By Deya's Grace, Toby hoped this wasn't going to be some kind of conjoined fear from the Deep, he didn't want to deal with seeing something horrible happen to Krel.


End file.
